


Questions, Quandaries and Quarry

by Kasan_Soulblade



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-21
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-19 04:06:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 18,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/568895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kasan_Soulblade/pseuds/Kasan_Soulblade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were the Reports, penned on a book that never was.  There was the Before, part seduction, part history, certianly a guild to madness. And there was the Now; reality incarnate, yet riddled with doubt as the unnamed man who lived his life pressed about the edges.  And slolwy, per the rules of pressure, the sides came down and three became one.</p><p>And this isn't the only trinity to desolve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Report: 01

Questions, Quandaries and Quarry.

_From the back pages of the Lexicon…_

_Another side; personal perspective and other delusions:_

_The Report: 01_

_Irrelevance of relevant_

Despite what others might think, even Nobodies have childhoods. For the non-sentient it's an easy matter, easy to pin point the moment upon our existence that _does_ exist. All claims to the contrary by ever Somebody ever born is simply a matter of prejudice.

Like our predecessor, there is birth. Devoid of blood and all of Birth's biological niceties, but it's there. That one flicker between existence and not, like a cheap magicians trick, _here is, there it goes_ , save reversed. Then that immutable moment springs upon the newly made, that opening of eyes, wide and wild we gaze upon the unspeakable. Overwhelmed by the vibrancy of an unknown universe, a universe a thousand times more complicated than any Somebody can ever conceive, _it_ is spread before us.

Then denied. Promptly. Forbidding the newborn hope.

Light, light, glorious illumination, intercedes. It gouges at sensitivity with impunity, never mind its supposed mercy…

Then, merciful cruelty, comes the Pall. That grey tide which encroaches on the bite of illumination, steeling fangs and numbing sensitivity before a cry can be rendered. Grey steals the edges, muffles the light's blade.

Thus is birth, this is childhood's end, for those without minds. Minds are placed within the Hollowed Ones. Instinct: who to follow, how to follow, frame and form. All are instant, one inflicted, and by the writhing of quicksilver I've seen a thousand times before it's not a pleasant span, the last.

But, before _that_ Moment and the monotony of After there is something.. intangible… to the experiences. Any with wit, excluding all Somebodys as they are all without, would understand that these moments encapsulate the whole of infanthood to adolescence –perhaps adulthood, that I'm unsure, as those without words, with planted minds can change anew, with influence.. it's something to speculate upon at a later date-. Asides aside… the cycle of maturity goes through stages. Growth, structural, mental are the forms of growth acknowledged by the Hearted masses to have worth. Those _are_ experienced by a Nobody. While accelerated _time is an irrelevant denominator_ _in this equation_ , and thus a Nobodys development is equitable to the actual growth cycles of their predecessor Somebody.

Yet further proof that those Hearted and Those Without are perhaps closer to comparison than the Somebodies would like to concede.


	2. The Now:  Justice's Hue

Questions, Quandaries, and Quarry

Here and now: Justice's Hue

He recalls bits and pieces, fragmentations of a while. And like any intellectual, missing half the pieces of the problem is enough to rile his temper.

The fact that some niggling bit of truth insists that this lapse is his own fault stirs the rarely risen to vicious forum.

Slamming the door as he went, he stormed out. Quitting vocation and sense for a while. Fisted hands were shoved into black jean pockets, he loosed one fist to zip his hoodie tight never mind there was no chill. Errand done it clenches, and to better hide this he shoves it back into a pocket with its kin.

He's never cold, ever. The motion's a habit. Why, the why behind it is mad, barking, still if pressed he'll admit through grit teeth the following.

 _To ward their eyes_ …

Whose eyes, he never knew. The truth was likely a dated one. Considering the oddity of his apparel and carriage of the moment, it was more than likely he would draw any and all eyes to him. Actually the guarded glance of some woman across the street assures that he's right.

Like always.

Still, addressing the logic of the here and now verses the logic of the then and there… It's insane, he'd be first to admit it, inane even, but it's still there. An insurmountable impulse. And no matter how much he _knows_ it's wrong, that it doesn't fit, all is eclipsed by the insidious hiss of the Before.

So he endures the odd look from the passerby across the street as he rips his hood over his face. His frame is quaking with near homicidal fury –the only thing that makes it _near_ is the fact that there is now no one about to serve as a body- he tackles paved streets with stomping feet and storms into the night.

It is dark, night, the eternal moment that no one but him remembers has long passed. For this world (there are others, don't ask how, or even why he knows, he just does) while striking and beautiful in sunset and its attendant twilight, neither are eternal. While _that_ monotony is broken the blockish, ho-hum, saneness of the buildings about him remains.  Nothing could save those. Save razing.

But he wasn't the one for arson, they had… someone… for that. Roman numerals flicker through his mind like the dying edges of a fire he wishes he could use. Words akin to a child's rhyme, all disjointed and nonsense, save someone’s' striped the words of childishness, twiddle through his brain. Fire for nine, One superior…

One should have been mine. Was meant to be…

There and gone. Incensed now, he wishes for a dog to kick, not finding any he settles for a sizable chunk of pavement. The cements broken here. Fancy and a small crater with spider webbed jags indicate some mammoth's fist has done the damage. Gossip indicates the tenant above the shop –Frivolities Incorporated, his name, not the one that adorns the sign. Their specialty is shoes and accessories and how it all comes together to fill a shop no matter how small is a wonder of wonders- threw something heavy and dear to her husband out the window and let gravity work its wonders.

Good for her, so murmur the righteous busybodies.

Better for him, he doesn't have to deface someone's property to get a rock to kick. Vengeance done (spite indulged) foot hurting (expected) he crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at nothing at all.

And he hates getting his hands dirty, his hurting foot tells why without words.

And that, the last, is a wonder and mercy and worry all in one.

He's never without words, either his or other's to peruse. He's never without a book in hand. Legally obtained or not he has to have a book, and now that his rage had dulled to a more sane level –the red's receded- that lack is coming back.

Clamoring silently, his brain is informing him that right now, this ever moment, he is without a book. Redundant beyond redundant, it chatters that he's never ever without, and that span of Before murmurs in his ear with grating urgency that he's unarmed.

No not that.

Whispers are too tame, orders too concise. It _drives_ him to correct his flaw via punishment. Setting an itchy emptiness over his hands that though fisted and pocketed and is insistent enough to encourage rubbing. Tracing seam, least his thumb feel left out, his other digits begin to twitch. Desperate to sooth a sensation that's, his Shrink says is, "all in his head".

As itch swells to an ache -to be open, to hold the edges, the comforting weight, save none of them are right, _none of them at all_ \- the sensations hijack his mind. With obsession's sincerity it avows that he doesn't have to resolve his dilemma now, just soon.

Preferably immediately.

Then the sadistic thing, the thing of Before ups ache to eye watering agony. Gnashing his teeth, least he scream, he closes his eyes, tries to push the need back.

And when he opens his eyes, finds that he's pushed everything else back. Confused by the unfamiliar open air, open sky, little facts flick into being. No roof, no walls, mean _outside_. Smooth grey stone, poured stone, cement! Beside a bit behind, broken, crater, jag… Numbers flash into his mind, then his aching foot somehow gives enough stimuli to shove the numbers and their elusive errant conclusion back. Broken, fragments, his, more than. He shifts on his aching foot, affirming that they are his, his to get back at. Lukewarm spite pushed back the chill running up his spine, so it's with clear, befuddled blue eyes he looks both about and inward. Sign, text, his lips curl as he reads its inanity. The whole is blockish, underscored with shoelaces, pink shoelaces… Irritating, the contents within are more so than the text, that fact bubbles to the front of his mind without much of a battle.

Behind, unseen but known, (reaching, he's reaching, good, a good thing, stretching the world past it's square and up) back, black, rough where the other is smoothed, white stripes, all straight, all chasing each other –save when it curves, but only at intersections- tidbits rustle about. Mind the red, save when it's green, words congeal into dialogue.

From Before, last week, never, who knew?

" _When the little person is in the box abutting the pole with the three lights on it, it means to **not** turn! **Not turn**. As in, **do not hit the accelerator and run the pedestrians over**!"_

_Brutishly unrepentant, the other, as always, rumbled a surly "Next time, you drive then!"_

Footsteps, not behind but beyond his range of vision.

He'd heard those before. Swagger to the step, his heart raced and he whirled about, eyes wide, haunted by things that shouldn't be

Couldn't be.

" _Don't you… want to be real…"_

" _What are you telling him!"_

" _You know… too much-"_

_Pain, heart he didn't have wasn't beating, not anymore…_

Sound sans coherence, save for one fact. Concern. He grasped the difference, cataloged each after it. Brown striped with silver flat, not red hair spikes. He grips each difference, and the madness in his gaze eases back bit by bit. Brown, apron, pants, white shirt, a hand warm (not scalding) reach for him. Reaching done, the one claps his shoulder. No black robes, on either of them. Truth pushed through Before and remembrance and fragments. Holy help him if it hadn't, help them both.

He snatches up the significant truth then, the closest one to the left and holds it tight.

 _This wasn't then_.

 **One breath**.

His mind is a puzzle see, save someone's swiped all the pieces and jumbled three sets into the same box and said here, live with this. And

 **Another breath**.

His knees are knocking, bad, fear of things that had come and were nightmarish to boot. The whole tasted rancid and dark. He snorted, trying to dislodge the scent and failed. Failing, he fell, supported by…

**Once more**

Nothing at all. Else it wouldn't be a fall.

Back clacking against a white pole with enough force to cause the faulty light atop to flicker. While logic was his specialty, wiring was not, nor the logistics attached. He nearly sobbed, checking back the weakness, ever aware of eyes (no matter how kindly they were eyes, on him, and he must act accordingly) he slid down the pole.

Shivering, eyes scrunched, least he start crying, he wrapped arms around his chest. Now cold, more than.

"Bad one?" the hand retracted. Fabric on air, the subtle sounds of both interacting alluded to that.

He daren't open his eyes to check, the pieces were tumbling, eyes wide, he might see something. Something that alluded to illusions.

That'd destroyed him,

One handed, his Master, employer, both. Both were inflicted by mercy, had that bright blade put to their throats. Or in the older man's case, his hand. Put and pressed, and the pressure of a blade was quite cutting indeed.

It had been a petty thing. Whenever the older man had drunk he became violent, he hadn't stopped drinking, and thus had inflicted an act of violence upon some somebody of no importance. Permanent violence, permanent harm, a numbing really.

Not all that bad, at least the first victim's arm was still attached and stuffily mobile.

As for the second victim, the perpetrator of the wrong he was, but he was made a victim by the events thereafter… Well the evidence of what had happened was obvious to any with eyes, the ability to count, and a passing knowledge of the human body.

Seeing the stare, ascribing the aqua hued glower to more of the usual, confusion and the like, the brunette and his incriminating grey set one arm to rub his stump.

Rumor had it the detached could be visited in a museum of judicial curiosities nowadays.

Lips quirking at the _faux pas_ that teased his tongue the fallen uncrossed his arms and let a glimmer of humor light his eyes.

"How long was I out?'

While not "out" exactly it was the word they'd decided upon.

"Not long ###."

Static spit in his head, obscuring the last

Blankly the young man stared up; not recognizing what was inherently his. He'd never react to it, after all his name was part of what had been stolen from him in good driven retribution. The last gift from a mother and father he didn't know, never met, was no longer his.

Language had been twisted in his head, a wonder more wasn't, littler wonder that he had mood swings and was edgy ever after.

"Ready?" Arm offered, muscular but not as much as perhaps another he'd known was offered.

"Client…." Before his temper… there'd been someone, pink haired, frizzled yet feminine despite being a male. Perfume and lip gloss were the two tells to that last judgment. "Did he…"

"Your exact words,-" finger interlaced he was pulled up; younger unsteadily toddled until balance was found. Once equilibrium was assured, the older carried on. "-were, "Traitor or not at least I _think_ you pompous ignoramus!", when the pretty boy went to me and spotted my arm he up and vamoosed. Squeamish little thing he was. Gardeners always are."

" _Tall_ little thing, he was." The Traitor drawled. "He topped you by half a foot."

And the speaker in question was topped by his retriever by almost a foot atop that. Growth genes, hormones, and the like, were devilishly selective. Much like intelligence.

"And what's got you grinning?"

"Something both impolitic and sadistic, you know, the usual."

"Don't I?" Thick older man's brows puckering in thought, perhaps thinking of a few uncensored 'comments' he'd had inflicted upon himself for asking the redundant "what". Taking the course of wisdom, thus living up to cliché around the edges, he said instead of the expected. "Well… Traitor, better now?"

A snort and a wry "Never," was both truth and answer for the two of them.

But this was the shade of justice in the land of Light. Be good, adhere, question not, and be but another rose upon back of Radiant Garden. Question, cause discontent, _be_ discontent, and to the Twilight you were banished. Evermore, redemption was a fantasy never fulfilled, always offered, but never met.

"So, head back on?"

"As much as it ever is." Long hands smoothed over hoodie front, the silver zipper twinkled as it swayed.

"To work then!" Arm swatted the younger's back, causing him to stagger and dislodging a few long silver tinged blue locks to stab at one eye. Closing the assaulted, he slipped out of the over familiar embrace and shoveled the locks under his hood with one twitchy hand.

When his eyes were clear and his face hard –the scowl he was shooting was a rough thing, making the muscles that held it up to ache- he was set upon by.. by Ronald Ospray's sheepish expression.

Fact recalled, last fact he was missing in this moment, the younger sighed. Relaxed. Thick as ever Ronald saw it and thought he'd caused pain.

"Sorry kiddo."

"Don't " _kiddo_ " me." The Traitor hissed.

"Well I can't bleeding call you "Traitor" can I? Not for something no one, not even you, knows what you did. And you don't know your real name, so what's left?"

To that more than reasonable rebuttal the Traitor opened his mouth, closed it, then all accidental twitched his fingers. The burning had abated, but was coming back. For that to stop, more than anything else, he nodded and after a quick look at the nearest sign –Pandora Ave intersected Finite street- was more than ready to pick his way back.

Past jags, and flaws, lines and monotony you see there was an office. A boxish span where he worked, surrounded by grey green bookshelves and gloom in equal measure. Before that little fiasco during his break with boys to be pretty to be sane or straight, he'd been working that was, well breaking for a bite, but still…. Work was where he belonged. Surrounded by books with numbers, the first he loved the second he loathed. Both offered a means to ease the agony crawling across his fingers. And for that more than anything, he was ready to move.

"I'd _prefer_ Traitor."

"I don't. Grow up, and not the growth spurt way." Ronald grumped.

Ah crisis adverted, callousness returned. More than pleased with that, the man with no name took the lead, sure of his mind at that moment to find his way back to the familiar. Back where, inflicted impulse dictated, he belonged.


	3. Before: Childhood Acquisition

Questions, Quandaries and Quarry

Chapter 2

The Before: Childhood acquisition

Despite what others might think, even Nobodies had childhoods. For the non-sentient it was a moment. Like that flicker between existence and none, it was a span where everything was taken in with wide eyes, overwhelmed senses. Then came the Pall, that grey tinged illumination that settled over everything. Snapping up splendor and shock and awe all in one move.

In its place came the rudimentary. The "how"s of how to take orders, follow orders, a means to understand, and the instinct to know who to follow when.

It wasn't much, a few seconds for most. But such was the vast majorities of a Nobodies childhood. There today, gone tomorrow on fast forward. In truth, per personal perspective and a multitude of cliché, there was no difference. In this one regard Nobodies and Somebodies were quite similar.

Bemused by thoughts far disassociated with the dust before him, but akin in texture and scent, Zexion heaved a sigh. From wry musings, to dust, to dusty subject, such was his lot. He stood before Vexen's love (one of many, the true scholar was anything but monogamous with his passions) and his bane. Mathematics, and it was something a mite more advanced than "x plus a variable equals y, what is x?" that he'd grown to hate his Somebodyhood ago.

A smile pulled on his lips, one corner mind. He could still hear Vexen's irate, grating voice twist to a howl. Belittling his Somebody, and circumstance that had roped such an ignorant Nobody and himself to work side by side. This "mission" was a sham. But indulge one step to the side, listen to the clink-a-link of a wallet bulging with munny, the sound scarcely muffled by his thick black robes, and then reconsider the circumstances.

Yes, he'd been sent out with biting words and scorn…

But he'd been given more munny than he could count, no time limit, and access to a bookshop with orders to get what he needed.

Then there'd been that glimmer to Vexen's eyes. Anger had dimmed, as they'd looked upon each other, one scholar to another. Understanding shared, munny had passed hands, and that had been that.

Still, choice bits of his telling off lingered, playing when he got bored with looking at the covers of his bane.

_Of all the blasted memories to retain, you recall all of your knowledge of literature, history and humanities, rudimentary as it is, but nothing, **nothing** past calculus!_

He almost smiled, _almost_ , but the void in his existence swept out from the emptiness of his heart to rake his features with clawless hands. It went in stages, his loss. First the comprehension of how to smile fled. His lips slackened into a tell nothing line. Up it went steeling the mirth from his eyes. Then ever insidious it slipped in the space behind his eyes into a mind. Sliding between contradictions, existent non-existence was the crux, but there were others, all subtle in their shades of madness.

One blink, another, then he wondered, had to, what he'd thought was so… so… amusing? One blink, another, and even wonder was gone.

Pulling one book, requisite, it summoned a yawn that the nothingness within couldn't check, he flipped open the first page. Like any other pretentious text, the front had chapters, and each chapter was marked with a roman numeral. Fourteen numbers, and had he actually known of certain facts the irony would have been funny. As it was the idea of it being off by one digit irritated.

Still Vexen would do more than irritated if he didn't come back with at least one book.

Just one…

Twiddling orders, with expectations, against temptation, was a handful. Well two digits shy, but enough to occupy his mind. The tides and ebbs of nothing could do little against such sterile thoughts, so he was allowed to flip through the text, not quite understanding what he skimmed but sure that with effort he'd comprehend the worst of it by perusals' end.

Tucking the text under his arm, it joined a kin more loyal than any mundane book. Black and silver script glinted in Twilight Town's chancy light, seemed red and orange, the metallic script. Still such changes were only cosmetic and a quick half step back from the window would assure Lexicon's return to gloomy normalcy. _Another side: Hallucination_ the title had caught the bookstore's owner eye and guaranteed the shoppers solitude and inspired a not-so-subtle check of said shop owner's tea cup when Zexion had passed.

Really, as if he'd _poison_ a Somebody.

While a tempting little experiment he much preferred magic induced mind plays, thank you. Also, screaming mad Somebodies tended to draw attention.

On the other side, (that thought summoned an idea, something about curled lips and irony, but that was beyond him now), it was nice to be feared, despite its present misplace. His aura on a pleasant day was to quote the crudest of the thirteen "Fuck off, I freakin' bite." Personally Zexion found the descriptor apt if flawed. Profanity was so… clumsy… especially when used gratuitously.

Hmm perhaps he'd get a dictionary for Axel, the man desperately needed one.

Ghosting past one window he drifted to the stores back. Bookshelves, all faux wood and shined by a gloss of fakeness that felt homey Zexion wandered up and down the small grammar section. While he was at it, perhaps he'd get a speech therapy book for Xemnas.

Imagining those orange eyes sizzling holes into his own complements of a laser blast from said tangerine hued peepers Zexion shelved the book he'd found and the suicidal idea in one move. Dictionary in one hand, (the thickest he could find, his gift would be a projectile, it's flight calculated per means of his first book to make sure it wasn't flawed in some way) Lexicon keeping Math company, he went to the counter. The bookshop's owner, a boring Somebody hardly worth noticing, noisy and grating as all their kind, so painfully vibrantly alive that the details boiled down to male, oldish, and nothing more, was out.

As in; I'm still _checking tea, and the contents of the refrigerator, I'm not coming out_ , sort of out. Rolling his eyes at the mundanely of it all Zexion set his purchases on the desk top and waited. One flash of light made him pause, the binding metallic threads of his robe were swaying, tinkling, and catching the illumination to flare with unseemly brilliance. Snapping his free hand over the swaying luminance he snarled.

Something behind the door beyond the counter whimpered.

Another sound kept his temper from snapping. Voices, a scuffle. Leaving desk behind he slipped to the nearest window, pressing against shadow of a bookshelf to better hide himself from the not so oblivious onlooker.

"Come on freak, say it!"

There was a cluster, smears of color. Reaching out he swiped a hand over the gritty plane, able to see clearer he contemplated the circle of Somebodies. There was something or rather someone, amongst their midst being shoved back and forth. Proof of the last was given via thumps and a patch of spiky blond that struggled back and forth but never broke free from the crush.

"Come on Zombie boy, say it, say it… _Braaains_."

No grunt, cry of help, or any other response was given. The shoving got worse, and some of the weaker ones, specifically a short girl amongst the gathering, were pushed aside.

Just long enough for him to see a frame. Small, waif incarnate, a boy, blond hair, bruised. There and gone.

He'd not have care, really, but the boy with those dead, wide, blue eye brought back memories. Memories of birth, of growth, of the feverish moments after being Nothing.

"Come _ON_ , Creeper, say it!"

Hissing in recalled pain he stepped to the counter, took what he wanted, leaving nothing behind, as he stormed out. They were as he expected. Pathetic adolescent brats lost in the throes of cruelty, shrouded in clashing baggy clothes that were what their deluded minds perceived as "cool".

If he was right, if his hunch, that glimmer of a seeing was correct he'd be more than happy to inflict Vexen on the lot.

And Vexen would be more than content to have Somebody to play with. The academic loved studying the heart, he'd like some fresh –if shriveled- ones to play with.

And what Xemnas didn't know wouldn't hurt.

Oblivious, they played on, never mind how his approach was louder than hell and his cloak billowed and all those other things the intelligent would note in his coming. But, perhaps all was not lost. The girl, sore from her last jostle, was less interested in the masses sport. She turned at his snarl, and despite the fact his fingers were flicking through Lexicon for the right page she picked up something from his approach and translated it to "busted". With a whimper she stepped back into the tallest of the brutes. The white clad boy grunted a "Wha'?" further flaunting his stupidity by not being able to articulate.

"Wha's it?" The punk snarled then he turned and smiled, seeing a short man coming up. Like most intellectual lackards he equated short with young and weak. "Aw lookit, another short stuff kid to play with!"

"Hardly."

Flipping open the book, page assured by touch and a memory that was most definitely OCD driven he showed off the text. Now, in most cases a flashing of a few pages was nothing. Just paper and ink bared to the world. Depending on whether there were pictures, or a good enough point to said flashing, a Somebodies reactions varied but wrenching the book from your hands _was_ a norm.

Lexicon however was no ordinary text. It was, as its title indicated, illusion incarnate. Hallucination was hardly benign, and this chosen one was the worst of the worse. Tailored to give each person a personal viewing of their innermost nightmares a few minutes could drive one and all mad.

Suffice to say, it was his favorite.

Screaming, they scattered, those Somebodies. Leaving victim to the clutches of a madness wielding malicious "shortie". Growling a few profanities at his _least_ favorite nickname Zexion shut the book. Dead blue eyes, a cache of blond rumpled hair and a smattering of bruises (some seen, most not) greeted him.

The poor Nobody didn't blink. Probably didn't know how yet. So suffice to say there wasn't much words to the younger Nobody's greeting to his elder. Which present immersion with Somebodies considered, wasn't such a bad thing.

"Come."

Hand offered, he beckoned, hoping the Nobody could walk somewhat. He'd been "shuffling" so his moniker suggested. The boy had also stood through a series of shoves without falling.

There was a hope that this wouldn't require touching the newborn Nobody, if his cards were right (curse Luxord and all his influence, no more poker night, never again!) the Nobody would just shuffle right up. Which, after a long pause passed, the boy started to do so.

_Slowly._

With his free hand he waved at the air behind him. Black spiraled from his fingers, thin ribbons  which spun round and round, thickening, conjoining into a door sized void at his back. Once the portal was fully formed and rippling with violet flames about its top, Zexion turned to consider the Nobody.

There'd been three steps traversed, perhaps four. Worse the boy was dripping red. Add cuts to bruises then. A flick of his hand changed the destination, to Vexen's lab it was then.

Five minutes later, one extra step, and the Schemer snapped.

"Oh for Kingdom Heart's sake!"

Stomping down the curb, he stormed up to the boy, snapped up a flacid arm, and once assured by the fact there was no pulse and this really was a Nobody and not some brain dead Somebody he hauled the brat behind him.

They left Twilight for darker paths and were spit out upon a span of pristine white. Vexen's voice crackled off, stilling his rendering ( _not r_ endering, as there were notes dying and hordes of Unversed being spawned with every verse) of some nonsensical song by some random singer cut off with a squawk.

Smiling, spite warming his spine if not his heart, Zexion shoved the wide eyed boy before him. Malice was one of the few things his heartless existence didn't deny.

"Number Four, meet Thirteen."

It also didn't forbid the occasional foray into melodrama.


	4. Now: Of pens

Questions, Quandaries, and Quarry

The Now:  Of Pens

He nursed a headache, and in one hand a cup of coffee.  Sprawled before him was a book.  The hand not occupied with the cup was spread under it, half propping it up, half twiddling the edge of the pages.  It was a tentative business, holding it up, you could feel the covers texture of stains.  Careless others, how many he didn’t care one was bad enough, had abused the text.  Relevant pages had been dog-eared, fingerprint smears marred the edges of each page, and the like.  Still, it was his now, and once he’d gotten it, this job, he’d set out a few rules.

Rule one; No matter where inspiration struck, the book wasn’t to leave the desk.

That had been introduced after his first week.  After he’d come back from his dinner break to found the book missing and found it again in his employer’s hand, said man walking out of the bathroom.

After that little fiasco, a screaming match, he’d declared his desk inviolate, his boss’ a mess, and nearly walked.  Walking wasn’t really an option, and when “they” had interceded in their subtle, silent, way, he’d gone back to work.  Sullen and bitter, but toeing the line.

Still, his commentary about messes being the province of little minds had stuck, and the strained comradely between him and his boss had become more so after.

He’d spoke, as the voice in his head did, with an aristocratic sneer. Spoke an echo of Before, and that had set Ospray’s back up and then some.

Still, the memory of the tone rather than that day summoned a smile.  Ospray thought it “friendly”.

Whatever delusions get you through your day.

_Click, click, click…._

Teasing the pen’s top, not the tip, least he get cut, he twiddled the button atop.  He’d done the calculations already, in his head about fifteen minutes ago, revised them once, and now was content to let the lean facts rattle around in his skull.

_Click click click click_

“Seriously kiddo, I’m glad you recall the on off button, really I am, but there’s this nifty thing called putting the tip to the page…”

All in all it wasn’t a bad attempt at sarcasm.  Juvenile, overstatement that was not “ _quite”_ hyperbole… But why reward such a lackluster effort?

“I’m bored”

“The world’s sole intent isn’t to entertain you.”

A grunt served as his answer to Ospray’s trite.  With a string of unheard words the one armed man set his hand at to organizing the paper chaos that served as a desk.  Irritation and a sheen of sweat was the man’s undoing.  Flushing, Ospray glowered at the fallen patch of papers.

From patch to assistant his glare wandered, and it took little to realize why.

A decent soul would have been moved to help.  The good hearted would have already been up and doing.

Something about that bothered the Traitor, something about that thought, but it remained elusive...

Mind elsewhere, he twirled the pen about between unfeeling fingers.  _Automatic-manual;_ so read the little print on one side after moving his thumb.  How amusing.

Lips quirking he finally set pen to paper, ignoring the scrape and scramble going on behind.

There were other things to consider; the looseness of the button, the slack spring, the faded print.  Someone (someone ELSE something murmured) had a nervous tick, had used this pen, and had his nervous tick.  As for the book itself…. Flip back more than a months’ worth of pages and there were… was… a revelation of sort. Other’s handwriting, neither his nor Ospray’s, filed in any of the text.

There was a relief in that.

And it planted a discrepant factor, which teased the edges of his mind.

There’d been a time in Before, but not “before” when he hadn’t known, the on/off functions of a pen.  Ospray had seen is –obvious per comment- but he didn’t recall the incident.

_Click… click…_

“Seriously kid!”  The older man snapped, still scrabbling away at the pages.

Pen’s tip scrapped against wood as he stood.  Under his hands the pages were filled, his work was done. There should have been satisfaction, relief.  That was normal, good. He wasn’t, either or.  More ambiguity squirmed in his guts; it was part dark, part acid.  Fist clenching on the pen he stood, shook, glared at the downed man.

His last whisper of rationality hissed at him not to impale his co-worker.  Things could, “ _would”_ , get worse if he did so.

The pen rose, fell, impacted.  Black spurted from the split tip.  Obliterating a day and more’s labor.

Spreading his hands over the destruction, he glowered down at the paling man.

“I will say this _once_.”  His hands fisted over ink and crumpled pages.  Black spurted through his digits, staining the inside edges an tips black. “ _One_ last time, and if you don’t listen I’ll-“  Sense made him snap his jaws shut on a threat that would get him rehabilitated “further” due to his “regression”.  They were under watch, always.  “I’m not your son, I don’t _care_ about him, I don’t _care_ about you, I don’t care that he committed suicide after the same treatment we’re both under declared him “pure” and “fixed” from his dark thoughts.”

Flush overtook pallor.  Though one armed and on the later shade of middle age he was stronger than his apprentice.  This could turn bloody.

That thought alone kept him from spilling out more vitriol.

Pushing back he staggered.  More than his mental equilibrium had been compromised just then. Shaken by what he thought of as petty animosity he was startled to discover that it had swollen to this septic mass.  Slamming the door behind him, he reached and pressed the nearest chair under the door.

No thought to it, just the appeasement of idle animosity.

It’s only after a few thuds from the door, a few rounds of deep breathing, that the wash of red fades back and he can see.  The dust smothered knickknacks that equate second hand inventory and the desk near the door that is now chairless.

Another thud and some swearing tell him moving that chair to sit would be stupidity.  He braces it with some random metal bit of abstract art, then pulling down two broken chairs set one atop the other before scraping the mess over to the desk.  Sitting, he finds it a mite too high; his toes can’t touch the floor.

Feeling both young and nostalgic, he swipes a toe over the space between up and down and wonders why he only sees darkness.

Outside, beyond the shop and its dramas, a bitter wind howled.  Defying season (summer) and reason it sweeps back and forth.  Summoning shivers as it searched.  Then, defiance to rebellion, it builds to billow and the front door slamed open with a cheery twinkle as an underscore.

Lips quirking, still griped by a devilish malice, the short man behind the counter combed grey-blue locks out of his eyes.

“Welcome, to a place of no significance we’ve a fine selection of the cast offs any discerning nobody would appreciate.”

Something loud and heavy slammed into the back wall.  He spared an irritated glance at his braced chair, and considering the wide crack that had just appeared. Reconsidering his options with the tip of his head he stood.  Decision made, he planned on leaving, scant on ambition heavy on wisdom.

With a howl the wind beat him out, slamming the door.  No twinkle this time.  Only a not-so-symphonic clatter as the bell fell free.  Fell and shattered with a rattling finality.  He took one moment to pick up the bits and pieces, and in his black stained hands they slowly, melted.

Pocketing the black tinged, watery, metallic, mass that had once been a bell, he left shop and its raging owner behind.


	5. The Now:  Unlikely

The Now:

Unlikely

He tells himself there is more than this.  More than the moment that defines his existence and more than routine that binds day to day.  Perhaps, in that seductive span, the Before there had been something.

Not quite a hope, never a promise, but for all the vagaries just below the surface of his mind there is a sense of something that niggles.  Something lost.  Something that needed to be found.

An oddity amongst the order, an instinct of self-destruction that runs afoul self-preservation.

 Darkness has no taste, no scent, it just is.

Yet it does.

Before avows that there was, is, shall be something more.  But the Before is so chalked full of delusion via hallucination that while he wants to believe sense forbids him from blindly following the half mad impulse (instinct and exhaustion make him do it anyway, it’s not blind, simply compulsion folded to after too long a day).  Old cliché’s non withstanding he’s hesitant to trust a source whose tools unhinge the few scraps of sanity that are his own.

Sense, he suspects, is like routine.  Implanted, enforced with obsession, insurmountable…  So long as he adheres to… well what he adheres too.

Yet breaking the pattern has its own dangers.

Sense, like Routine, are both gears on the clockwork of the complicated, compelling, route that is his life.  He can hear them grinding, grinding _what_ he’s unsure.  But there is a subtle sound to it.  The kind that defies descriptors and inspired headaches and nausea.

There’s medicine for that, so his doctor would clamber, but he turns her down.  Shreds the prescriptions she presses into his hands, and flushes the pills left in his house.

He’s got enough factors controlling his life; he’s not adding chemicals to the mix.

Back and forth, he paces the length and width of his rooms, breaching those without a thought he traces the familiar route without seeing.  The inconsistencies jangle, no robes, no dark.

Save that little skein, too thin to be little more than shade.  He finds it pacing under a tree between here and there.  The shade is so light its bitter is lost and it smells sweet.

No talismans click and clatter with each step.  Though he knows it his hands rise up to arrest the motions of nothing and therefore close upon nothing.  Still he holds to the pattern, to the path.  In his mind he’s taking tangents and angles, perusing back ways instead of sunlit ones.

In this, his body complies with the patterns that guild his life.

That rebellious hand fisted over his heart tells more of his internal state than he’d like to confess.

Journey’s end.  The entrance’s a blur, the surroundings a smear regulated as nick-knack.  Another door, passed without recognition then forgotten.  Beyond the barrier is white, all white, yet there is nothing bright about the room.  Even with all the windows wide and the sun shining there’s a depression to the whole.  One desk, its top smothered in papers –work- awaits him.

The path’s ended for now, reality and realization settled in.

He’s here, not going, not there.

He’s in his place, his task before him.

His hand looses, he looks about, seeing the rooms other occupant.  Clear, unglazed, hazel eyes flick over him, stray to the fist that quickly unclenches and slips into the nearest pocket.  Suspicion confirmed, as had that bitter whiff of the man’s breathe the day before, younger glares at older.

“Don’t.”

Mouth open, the entrepreneur who never meant not be was clearly intending to say something.

“ _Don’t_.”

“I was… I mean…”  One arm reaches, fingers brush the arm that wasn’t.

The motion is vaguely reminiscent of an embrace.

Lips pealed into a soft snarl –not soundless, hardly gentle, the volume is merely subdued- the traitor shook his head.

“I’m _not,_ ” he breathes, “ _not_ you son, _not_ your friend. We’re together because _they_ say we were supposed to be.  Lack of personality conflict, that’s what the test said.  Compatible tasks, lack of conflict, potential for humanization and eventually integration.  That’s _all_ this is.”

And with that he threw himself into his char.  Snapping up the pen he glared down at the piles before him.  Click, click, open, shut, he twiddled the mechanism with unfeeling fingers.

“Don’t you think… aren’t you thinking… that by thinking like _that_ … means it won’t ever stop.  For you?”

Click, open… click…  “You’re a fool if you think this will stop, for either of us.” Release, a near soundless shudder as it locked closed. “What are they going to do, to give your arm back, after you reform?   How can they reimburse you, for all these years, with munney?”  He smirked.  “Unlikely.”


	6. The Before: Standards

Chapter 6

The Before: Standards

 

Numbers and ranks, rank to the person.  Such he could have been taught.  The redundant could have dovetailed with compliance.  He could have been given lists and facts without reasons and whys.  Intellectual regurgitation, the stuff fit for drones.

“Or standardized tests.”  The older scientist had spat.

A theft of sorts (or so the younger claimed, though it wasn’t the truth) got them something soft.  It was long, grey-green in age.  It sported a span of lumpish coils, felt fangs, and a forked red tongue.

Softly singular, it was rubbed by wondering hands.

“See,” at the sound of his voice the unnamed boy looked up, blue eyes wide.  “The texture is different.”  It was hard to understand if that nod was in response of simply because.

Feeling neither optimism nor pessimism he took it neither way.

A frown flicked across the child’s face when his hands were guided by his elders and he put the toy down.  Simply content to acknowledge this as potential progress he took one of those now flaccid hands in his own and murmured one word.

“Come.”

No response, at least to verbal commands.  A tug was all it took for the boy to half stagger off of his stool.  Fine motor control took months to master, so the lack of grace was expected.  Another tug and the boy got the hint and kept pace.

It wasn’t a long journey.

“We’re walking around a table.  What your fingers touch is a table.  It’s smooth, wood.  There is one table in this room.  The item you almost knocked over was a stool.  There is only one stool.  That which lay on the table is a stuffy…  How many stuffies, child?”

“Mmm…”  Clearly speech development was sub par.  Still, those sky hued eyes were riveted on the speaker’s face where on other journeys they’d flicked about with a near fearful awe.

“One table.”  Zexion reiterated.  “One room.  One stuffy.  One stool.  One you.  One me.”  He gestured to each item turn by turn.  “One.”

“Uhhh uhhhnn..”  Near repetition, phonic experiment, or communication attempt? He couldn’t tell.

“One.  One table.”  A touch, no tug, this time.  The shuffle resumed a mite quicker.  “One table, which you walk around.”  Flaccid hand in his own he laid it upon the table’s edge.  “We’re walking around a table.  What your fingers touch is a table.  It’s smooth, wood.  There is one table in this room.  The item you almost knocked over was a stool.  There is only one stool.  That which lays on the table is a-“

“Ee!”

A shock that, and a jolt.  One grip lost.  Then surprise passed.

“Stuff-ee.”  Zexion corrected.  Producing a twitch of the lips he tagged on a weary. “Good first try though.”

And for that effort, the boy met one with one of his own.  Producing a twitch, the younger Nobody flashed a weak smile at his leader.

“Now.”  Loose grip on wrist, another touch and step back was all that was needed, the younger shuffled after him.  “What your fingers touch is a table…”

XXX

Two wasn’t a problem, once the Nobody was able to list everything in room one a nap was the reward.  A much needed one if the blonde Nobodies gapping yawns were anything to go by.  Lab two was emptied, sans two tables, two chairs, two beakers and the like.

Not that there was a working theme for these elementary days.

Once everything was in place they lingered.  Scientist’s one and two.  Side by side in stool one and two, the taller sprawled, the shorter hunched.  Considering the elders back their postures might have been a deliberate rebellion against expectation, but it wasn’t.

Deliberation on that level wasn’t on their minds, not yet, not now.

Later days perhaps.

But for now they gathered and sat.  Flushed with the odd exertion and sore but refusing to admit it.  The taller of the pair raked lank blond locks out of his eyes.  It was another turnabout, as the younger normally was known for that little nervous twitch.  In the following silence, (oblivion always was, and as they sat on its very cusp such was there norm as well) both caught breath and composure.  Weighing cause and clause and old association.

Finally the elder spoke.

“Why?”

“Research.”

More crackle than laugh.  It was all the eldest had.  One explosion with mild acids, inhale, and the world thinks you the villain forevermore.

That choice bit of stupidity caused them both friction with the world beyond their labs.

“Try for truth this time.”

Nursing beaker one his thoughts went no deeper than the obvious.  The beakers would have to be cleaned out and their not so legal drink squirreled away so no new Nobodies made any untoward discoveries.  Too much alike, the oldest and eldest scientist, for their thoughts were the same.

Lips quirking, the elder blond snorted.

 “Something funny?”

It wasn’t distrust that made them quiet, or stilled the older Nobodies tongue.  Distrust wasn’t a factor considering… everything.

Caution however wasn’t beyond them.  In truth both held to it more than anything else.

“Scheming a mile a minute?”

Not quite an answer that.  So eye for an eye….

“Mmm,” Zexion took a page from his test subject’s book in articulation. 

Vexen laughed at that, laughed till his throat clamped, and he coughed.

Setting his glass, half full, the Schemer slid it from hand to hand then slugged it like a shot.  Bitter, that stuff, so bitter.  “No… no schemes.”

“Good.”  Slender hands twiddled his glass.  Hoarfrost sprouted at each ungloved caress.  “Now that we’ve foregone the justification stage, let’s resume our pursuit of reason.  Unless you’d like to stop over at denial first?”

Another cackle then a crackle cut off any other repartee.  Some chewing and a muffled curse came from the elder Nobody. Clearly the taste of their indulgence got stronger after freezing and the buzz diluted.

Gaze drawn to nothing in particular, the younger studied the floor.  White.  As were the walls, and the tables, and all the rooms in this wretched world.

“Dolls.”  He finally breathed.  He…Number one… he left us scattered in corners after…”  After we died and were reborn, that part didn’t need to be said.  It was something they both shared.  “After, like a pile of broken dolls. Enraptured by corners, unable to walk, move, think, feel.”

The crunches had slowed, stilled, then with a grimace all his own the older spit his indulgence back into his cup with a grimace.  Still grimacing he muttered.  “Not again?”

“Never again.”  Zexion hissed.

“Hmm...”  Setting down the chunk of ice, the older stroked stone for a span, setting mini icicles to sprouting.  “I’ll inform Aleaus these developments, that way the oversized hero can move furniture or us like a good little gallant.”  Tugging on his earlobe with chilly fingers the Academic considered internal vistas.  “One… would not approve.  He wants complete contact with any new made Nobodies of… significance.”

All the better to squash out those new born traits, like curiosity, personality, and the like.  He’d done his best to do so with the original apprentices.  Only their memories had saved them, memories and solitude due to negligence was all that had allowed a half handful to recover.

And One hated it. Hated them. It was a fact acknowledged by the thinning of those sunset eyes, re-enforced when those aristocratic features twisted into a sneer. When he sighted any of the six, or any of those made after acting human… there was hate, and bitterness, and murder in those eyes.

“I’ll of course supervise section two myself.”  The older Nobody cracked open one green eye.  “Run my own tests and the like.”

The start was impossible to suppress.  Vexen cackled at the younger’s response.

“Once you’ve verbalized your results, thus far, number six.  After all, we wouldn’t want to step on each other’s toes in this.  It would ruin the integrity of the results if we both ran the same tests, wouldn’t it?”

“No paperwork?”  Tentative came the last.  Vexen was normally obsessive about documentation.

“I’d like to minimize the evidence.”  Came the tetchy reply.  Clearly this break in protocol _was_ irritating the older Nobody.  Zexion smiled, a wider grin more familiar on Ienzo’s face than his own.

“No paperwork.”  The younger almost sang it.

“Oh, rest assured _brat_ ,” Vexen stood, stool scraping.  “I’ll keep you busy apprentice, very, very, busy.  And with Alesus in on this.. you won’t have time to breathe, much less scheme, when I’m done with you.”

“But it’s for science.”  Zexion murmured.  “So how’s that bad?”

Recalling that said… about other things.  Other madness’ that lead to darkness with eyes, and claws, and hunger, Vexen should have shivered, would have, any sane man would have.  If he could have.

There was a little matter of having no heart to consider in all this after all.

XXX

Confusion, wide eyes, no words.  Not whole words anyway.  Not yet.

Those would come last.

Sill, for all that would come, there were descriptors aplenty.

Tall, skeletal, stooped, green eyes, scraggly blond hair.  He’d late contrast scraggly to spiky and think of noodles when considering the older Nobodies hair.

Wisdom, later gained, would prevent him from speaking about the last analogy.

He’d confined it to one soul, one Schemer, but the thing about Schemers is that they kept secrets and kept them well.

So that secret of sorts, was safe.

But now, before confidence, and words and understandings, there were bits and pieces.   Bit’s he’d have to learn, before Before could really begin.

“People have names.”  Wide eyes flicked back to the shorter person.  The person from room one.  The Familiar.  He wasn’t speaking, the taller Other was.  The one who spoke of Names.  “We are not people, we are Nobodies.  The coagulation of what remains after the rending of a soul.”

Confusion, clearly.  The one from before frowned, shook his head, mouthed two words.  Too fast.  To that the older grimaced.

“We have no names.  Only titles.  We aren’t people, only potential.  And since I don’t know you yet, you can’t have a title, not now.  Titles are for later.”

  Another grimace, for one who hated to repeat himself, this was going to be the ultimate torture.

“Now, take my hand.”

Hand offered, gloved as was before.  To that familiar prompt the unnamed Nobody obliged with picking up the pattern he jerked at contact, shuddered, and his hand pales and riled with goose bumps at the light touch.

“Cold.”  The scientist rasped his script.  “I am cold.  My hands are cold.  My hands make you cold.  You are in a room.  Four walls, a ceiling a floor, such is a room.  The walls are white.  There are two tables, two stools, two people.”  Loosening his hold before frost burn set in he guided the child who was not by tugging on his sleeve.  Settling the boys hand on the table, Vexen sighed.  “On the table…”

“Un!”

To that firm denouncement the elder sputtered to a stop.

“What?”

“Wh..whuun…”

Mouthing syllables h played with phonons until revelation stopped him cold.

“Uhhn... ee…”

It didn’t take a genius to understand the barely articulated.  One me.  Sounds made that firmly couldn’t be anything less than a statement.

And considering.. everything… such a statement was also a defiance.

Quite the defiant defiance.

But then… weren’t they all indulging in such?

“Yes.”  A touch breathless Vexen conceded the point.  “Yes, there is only one of you.”


	7. Research and Reality

Questions…

The now, research and reality

The library wasn’t to his taste.  More window than wall, the room was all light and airiness and glittering edges where the wall was thinned to near translucency.  The world beyond the walls was a blur of uninteresting greenery and brick that was both chipper and monotonous.

The whole was rather depressing, the expected.

About him within, there were short shelves that he could tower over simply by standing on tip toe.  The few other patrons –all school students, coerced here by the general air of surliness about them- didn’t have to tip toe.  It was a state that a few of the more malicious had commented upon.  He didn’t respond to their taunts, simple noting who said what and storing the information for later.

Young and stupid might have been the nicest thing he thought of the pack of backpack wielding **Neanderthals**. They didn’t traverse the shelves where the respectable materials lay, rather the were clustered around the shiny boxes and from the muffled sounds coming from within the cluster research wasn’t what they were up to.

To those few who were actually working… well he quietly scoffed at the limitations they’d crippled themselves with.  These studious souls were simple creatures unable to see past the glimmer of artificial illumination.  While quick, computers were fixated upon theories that were the most popular, books on the other hand held no prejudices.  While occasionally flawed, the intelligent could easily winnow false from truth from a text.  For one there were sources quoted, a quick span of backtrack and it was simplicity to spot dross from gold.

With the internet you just hoped that someone would quote something retraceable to give an article some validity.

Dropping his first load he grunted, rubbed arms that were vaguely sore.  He wasn’t in pain, not real pain.  He was familiar with the multitude of hues agony was captured in, from the burn of a scrap baring the salt of sweat, to the sear of broken bones grinding. Vaguely he recalled (without the horror, the experience felt a world away) true pain.  Of flesh burning, of skin blackening, parting in a near liquid rush as the epidermis came undone...

But the roots of basic knowledge, those evasive elementary aspects known as when, where, why, and how, were beyond him.

Piling the books at whim –he’d sort it in finer ways as the day wore on, for it was going to be a long day by his reckon- he pulled out his one indulgence.  Paper, pen, spirals served as spine, colored slips the covers.  He flipped to the first blank page that felt right.  It was not, as logic said it should be, the start, but the sixth. There he began, not at the beginning, but some depth in.  Upon the unlined span, he scratched out the following.

**Fact:  I died.**

He stared at the span. Three words, two symbols, utter madness which was more than alluded to.

And before that stark behemoth of an idea all motivation faltered, failed, fled, died.

_I died._

Logic reared its head:  Sane men only die once.

Gritting his teeth, drawing on stubbornness and no little bitterness he pushed off apathy and snapped up the first book form the pile.  One history of many.

He needed to know the world, this world.

Because there were others, and they were as far as the stars.  So, for now, this one would have to suffice.

For now.

XXX

_What did he expect, reimbursement?_

There wasn’t enough.  Not to pay him from this indignity.  Not enough, not even a life without all the… all of whatever it was normal, sane, people dealt with whilst living… was enough.  Not now.  Not with the uncertainty rearing its head.  Glaring down the stair well, rather rumpled, not showered, slate hued hair a mess, he was dressed as he’d been the day before.  Frozen, one arm half in half out of the black jacket he’d tossed on to better hide his sorry state.

He was not in his best frame of mind.

But then after being awoken in the pre-dawn light by an ice rimmed branch tapping out S.O.S. on the window plane was enough of a start him out of half remembered dreams.

The ice on the window, with letters scratched out of the sheet in thin lines, (nails, someone had written it with their nails… the thought wouldn’t go away, nor would his wide wondering eyes) was more than enough to force his half-awake mind to full activity in a heartbeat.

“GET OUT OR THEY’LL LOCK YOU IN.”

G-iso.  It’s what his shrink called it.  Government forced isolation. Living in a box with nothing.  Because of who he was and what he done he wasn’t allowed anything.  And he wouldn’t be allowed to see anything.  They’d black out the windows and it would be dark, and there would be nothing and he’d wonder and wander the barren familiarity that was the start of each day, going mad via sensory deprivation.

A day, two, three…  He had no food.  Surely they wouldn’t do more than three days.

They’d done a week before…  Once, when he was allowed food.  And he wouldn’t sleep, couldn’t sleep, for they’d set something to the walls that caused them to thrum tunelessly.

Seven days, scrabbling around in the rumbling blackness, scraping with cans and can openers, not knowing what he’d eat, if he could eat, sick and shaking with the vibrations that spawned unending migraines….

Not again, never again.

He was up and scrambling in pre-dawn darkened corridors, fighting on the clothes he wore yesterday.  One arm in, the other not, he paused only to stumble over nothing at all, ripping open the door to glare down at the scene unfolding under silvering skies.

One man, the stairwell was empty save a blockish brute of a man in black.  Black suit, black tie, the polish of his boots glistened in the chancy illumination of a wakening heaven. One set of keys.  Blue eye met black shades, though dark skinned the stranger ascending paled and adverted his gaze from the traitor.

Guilt perhaps, fear certainly.  He could smell that latter, both bitter and sweet and clingy.

_Who was I, that a man twice my strength fears me?_

The question, like all others, remained unanswered.

Save one exception, one exclusion.

 _For_ , the Before breathes, in another, high pitched acid scarred voice, _we start at one, one is the logical place to begin.  It is the orgin, that which defines what is._

One…

One room, one chair one…

Closing his eyes, least he faint, least he fall, least he be locked in, he opens them, matching aversion with dead on confrontation.  He descends, stuffing coat under his arm as he goes.  He’ll fix it later, fix him later.

He needs out, he needs gone.

And the man below, seeing his victim approach, tires for control.

“You need to go back up. Back to…”

Gruffness shouldn’t shake. Terror does, not courage.  He draws in scent and knowledge with a grin that’s all all teeth no warmth.  Thus, armed with such a bitter expression he hisses. 

“Get out of my way.”

Hands first, taking courage in hand (a desperate type, all brittle and broken) the man tenses.  For fight, for flight, for one and both.  One of this mans’ arms equal two of his pressed together.  Physically it’s no contest.

For some reason, this doesn’t bother the traitor.  Doesn’t’ stir up his fear or concerns.  He’s a step beyond his heart, though he knows of consequence of what may come it doesn’t touch him.  Not then, not now.

“Out of the way.”

“Or what?”  The man rasps.

What indeed?  He has no power.  He is no villain. Though someone somewhere has cast him in this role, brushed him with that stripe of evil intent and action, he has now power.  Intent… now he has it, but no power.

He has no power.

The air is chill… Too chill for season.  The man looks about, startled eyes wide behind his shades if the smell of him is anything to go by.

 _Do too_.  The Winter whispers, a person all it’s own in this moment.

 _Do not_.  Murmurs sense installed.

Before snaps control, snaps sense, disregards winder.  His hands move, as if reaching for something just behind his back.

“Tell me.”  A voice, his own but not, murmurs.  “Have you perhaps heard of the Lexicon?”

One step, back, a near fall.  The man’s shaking now. Whatever they mean, whatever this is, there is a threat to these ambiguous meanderings.  There is a promise to the tone, and a threat to the insane syllables that make no sense to the man who’s speaking them.

The traitor uses it.  He has nothing else save this make believe now.  “I’ll use it, summon it…”  Because _summon_ felt right, the Before assures it _is_ right.  He’s summoned it before.  His hands ache for its absence.

Though confidence of surety is gone he pushes forward, hoping if he holds to facsimile the façade won’t fail.  “Right now, right this second.  Unless…”

A nod, the man has nothing to say, nothing to his mind, save terror and hope that’s been doled out by would be assailant.

Who has nothing to assault with.

He’d be laughing if he didn’t want to puke, both of which he’d be flopping between like a beached fish if he was touched by the emotions of this moment. Which he wasn’t, not right now…

Which he should be.

_I think... I am mad… mad enough to see I am mad._

The last thought is detached.  His, in his skull, bit neither Before, or Now, or misplaced Winter, or installed impulse.

It just is.

Like he is.

“Drop the keys, then run, run and don’t look back.”

The clatter, of key upon stone summons something.  Pain in his chest, echoes of intensity.  Pain, fury, loss.  He nearly doubles over at the assault all unintentional.  Once steady, once breathing no longer hurts, the rest of his descent is made in silence. For the man has long fled.

Long fled, and never looked back.  Hence how he misses it all.  This would be jailor.  By the time burning eyes cease, and the wetness that’s leaked out from there edges has been dried away dawn has arrived, dropping the “pre”.

The sun is shining up high, all bright and yellow, not a scratch of cloud or cold to the sky.

And he hates it.

Hates the sun.  The bright. The warmth.  Hates them all.

And wonders in that detached way of his as he stoops over, fetching key and a small scratch of control –won’t be locked in, never ever again- what he’s lost.  For hate isn’t born without loss.

So he’s lost the sun, not this one, but one assuredly.  Lost a light, not this one, but one from before.

But Before is quiet, and the Winter has fled.

So he’s alone, key in hand, left to wondering, left to wandering.

Only sure of one thing.

It’s going to be a long long day.


	8. Report 02: Of Light and Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another segment ripped from the pages of the lexicon... it is curious to note that there is a scent of char about the book, as if it had been held too close to a flame.

Report 2

Of light and dark:

There have been a multitude of studies about light.

Being a “pure” element it is a popular thing to dedicate one’s life towards.  Poets flock to it, the so called good adore it, it’s the crux of philosophy’s modern and outré.

But romanticization aside, illumination is a fascinating thing.

It’s speed, weight, hue, the manipulation there-of.  That is the thing of _thesis_.  The intelligent (dare I say enlightened?) have found ways to harness it as an infinite energy source.  Born of combustion, it brushes against infinity despite holding to such a mundane origin. 

For it is the source of life, it drives life’s cycles, there is no life on _any_ world without light.

Deprived of natural illumination men make it synthetically.

Deprived of it either in artifice or actuality men, like water, stagnate, slow, sicken, die.

Yet, what of dark?

It is the cliché of villains, the tawdry sinister adore it and are adorned by it. And yet, like its “benign” kin it is as necessary as anything else.  Souls do not close eyes to light only to be fully immersed in illumination at day’s end.

Dreams born of day are hardly restful things. Dreams of day are at best ambitions given fancy’s cloak and leave to stroll, at worse… they are madness and worse than mad.   

Sleep in illuminations’ clasp is tentative, a fleeting thing wrought with anxiety.

There is a passive surrender that the dark demands.  And when command isn’t heeded, it takes at a time of its own choosing.

Also, it differs in its kin in matters of intensity.  Born of flame, light has some of fire’s warmth and more of its warping efforts.  Granted, this mainly remains on a cellular level, but it still remains that too much light can be cancerous.

Yet rampant dark causes slowdowns of the natural process, a languid kind of rot.

Both are necessary of life, both carry aspects of death.

Yet illumination remains upon its pedestal and the shadows are ever eschewed.

To the intellectual mind, this... popularization… of such elemental aspects remains one of life’s many mysteries and frustrations.


	9. Before: Clockwork, part one

The Before: 

Clockwork part one

This is rain, gloved hands closed over his own.  Guiding him despite his is long past his clumsiness so he could touch the falling translucence, it traces down his wondering fingers to pool into his hands.  He looks down into the span called his face, its’ a blur, that image, but it’s his own.

The wide smile he feels cuts a white line across the smear assures him of this.

Behind, little more than a whisper, that calm, cool voice murmurs.

_“This is water, water falling from sky is the natural phenomenon called rain…”_

Element to number, number to rank, that’s how it goes.

“ _Rain is the terrain of number nine.”_

Nine _was_ a man, reborn as nothing.  Demyx is what he’s called now.  Before is unimportant, insignificant.  Nine is busy doing nothing at all. He lounges on a couch cat cornered farthest from the wall.  The slight signs of scuffle show he’s dragged it from center to corner.

Lazy, he’s been called it, number nine.  But moving the couch looks heavy and hard.

  
Was that lazy?

 _No,_ assured a voice, that voice, his.  _It’s not a lazy action, to pursue work is not to be lazy… But remember though this is a contradiction from what you’ve been told it might be best to find why that contradiction occurred._

Sitar gripped by flaccid hand, legs sprawled (robes stretched till they looked like a dress) the older was making a mess of his blond locks by tossing his head back and forth.  Nine’s eyes are shut closed, despite the stillness to the rest of the lounging Nobody the man’s eyes are roiling behind clamped lids.

 _Sleeping_ , he was sleeping.  He’d seen number Four sleep before, and though there was no whizzing croaks (snoring, warned the Schemer, though it was a smirk to soften scolding’s edge) something a Nobody didn’t have to do anymore.

But then, Nobodies did a lot of things that they weren’t supposed to do.

Having nothing to do was almost as tedious as being called nothing.  So to better fill the tedious waiting that filled the span before he was called before the council of thirteen, he sat upon a chair.  It wasn’t necessary, or even wise, -who knew who owned what- but it filed a little bit of time.

So he waited, thinking upon nothing at all, except that wasn’t quite the truth.  Nothing was boring, after all.  So, like he’d been taught, he mulled.  Thinking about what he’d been told and taught and had drilled into him when his skull had proven a bit… thick… for his mentors.

XXX

They tackled the tangible first.  Flipping through numbers and elements until it could be recited forward, backwards, and roundabout.  Once that had been surmounted complications and divisions had been added.

It was during their final lessons, on numbers, and people that weren’t, that the discovery had been made.  Reflection, refraction, distortion, division.  The later had turned into quite the colorful tangent.  And yes, there had been some play, wiggling ears upon the wall via the twitch of the fingers.

“Elementary illusion is the side effect of light and expectation,” the slate haired Nobody drawled, head tipped to the side, the second smallest Nobody considered his test subjects efforts.  Observation made he dropped his speech to note. “How droll, is it a heartless with its antenna wrong way about?”

Recalling pages from the book, a book about animals and places he’d never seen –not yet, there’d been an unspoken promise that would change, and change soon- the younger Nobody shook his head.  The boy who was not, nearly had his hair fly off when he denied the elder’s guess with vigor.  To that Zexion snorted, holding his peace about how the younger’s hair became a different colored in the shifting illumination.

“Rabbit.”

Because, though he was thinking _bunny_ something in his head said “too girly” and he’d learned to listen to that half articulated instinct.

“Fair enough.”  Hand fisted and set to his chin, fingers spread but curled just so –perhaps to better mask the smile that lit those eyes, one hidden, one not- the older Nobody sighed.  “Now that we’re done playing, perhaps we could get back to the point, of light and shadow.”

“I _know_ Zexion!”  The younger huffed, kicking at the table.  “It’s sight. And… and… people can play with that.  Playing with light, with dark, and sound.  That’s illusion.”

“Read ahead, did we?”

“You left the book behind last...”  Here, below, there was no sun, so no “day” not that he knew about either so... The younger grumbled more sound than syllable; hunching into himself though perched upon his stool.  It was a precarious position.  “I was bored.”

Hand pulled away, the older Nobody let his smile be seen, just for a moment, before the placidity that was as false as it was true slipped over his face.

“Not everyone would have read the book.”

It might have been a compliment.  With all his elders might-have-beens seemed more substantial than actualities.  Wondering why that was the younger set wandering hands over the table (one table… two chairs... one prism… two people… he’d mastered counting some time ago) and picked up the angular bit of glasswork.  There was something about the lines of it, the edges, it set a fluttering under the skin of his hands and without thinking he _pushed_ …

And there was light.  Gold about his fingers, but it broke beyond monochrome under the lines of the prism.  The walls were gorelessly slit into hues that he’d spent the earlier span of the day naming.  Looking particular perched between orange and red, the older Nobody gapped for half a minute before gravity nearly toppled him out of his stool. 

“Well… that solves… that…”  The older stood, straightened, never mind the toppled stool at his back.

“Scared you, didn’t I?”  The unnamed Nobody smirked.

It was a very Vexen smirk.

“Remind me to limit your access to number four.”  Zexion sighed.

Promises and reminder aside, the next day went as all the others before it.

Aeleus (yes, he had a Nobody name, was known as a hero for some unnamed deed –hence silent- but he never went by it unless being formal) was the first face the unnamed saw every day.  He commandeered mornings.  Filling them with exercise and basic things that should have been instinct but were not due to the circumstance of the newest’s odd birth.  It literally was into the large man’s arms he walked into one of those early days ago when shuffling had been eschewed.  Furniture had been hauled out of the room –the older insisting he do the labor as he was bigger- and thus they’d began a series of efforts that graduated to evasive tactical training.  Leaps and ducks, rolls and dodges.  Those he learned from a man who at first glance seemed too bulky to pull them off.

“There’s always someone bigger.”  The Silent half warned.  “Now, let’s try that double jump again.”

So they did, again and again until he was about to drop.

Between lessons’ end and a shower Vexen would stroll in.  He voiced no complaints about second shift.  Basking in the luxury that seniority allowed him, he worked when he wanted and leisurely puttered about with his experiments until it was time to focus on the newest Nobody.  It was after lunch (where manners were the key, manners manner and more manners) that he inflicted a daily physical upon the unnamed boy who wasn’t. 

Once the medical brick-a-brack was ticked away books were pulled out of a crackling nothingness that smelled like frost.  Green eyes would narrow and thus they would begin, books landing upon the lab table with a snowy thump.   Silence was normal, respectful, demanded.  There would be words later after the teaching’s end.  Words were used to fill in the needed blanks of “questions and answer” or “summarize the previous”, the rest was pleasantries.  And Vexen was adamant that they “eschew such meaningless prattle”.

Sliding upon the retrieved stool with a soft sigh the younger wound his legs about the stool’s because only undisciplined brats kicked the table’s leg.  And he didn’t want to be an undisciplined brat, did he? Of course not.  That was bad.

And bad little boy-Nobodies got half a supper and the supper was always bitter and green.

At least that’s what Vexen had told him.

Having a bite of something bitter and green on the first day.  It was his strongest memory of his first day. And even thinking about how bitter and green it had been…  The unnamed Nobody didn’t take any chances, he never kicked, ever.

No matter how bored he got.

Kicking the table top was also not allowed, nor was tipping it, or hiding behind the chairs

Unless Aeleus said otherwise and it was in evasion training.  Then it was OK.

Vexen did “not” teach evasion training.  It was not his per-og-a-tive, at least that’s what the scraggly blonde had grumbled when asked.

Recalling how confusing the first few days had been… the unnamed boy sighed.  Loud enough that the older Nobody stopped in the act of laying books out in neat piles.  Long fingers spread over the thinnest, there was droplet that were half frozen where his fingers touched down.  Never minding the effects of his private winter the older raised an eyebrow and waited.

Only when waiting grew boring did he press.

“Problems, Thirteen?”

Surprised at the “not lessons” chatter, the younger blinked up at the older.

“I have to call you _something_ until you get a name.”  An almost smile curled the older Nobody’s lip in one corner and the green of those eyes thawed just a mite.  “Brat’s been taken, so…”

Tipping his head, the younger stared at his elder.  This wasn’t “questions and answers” was it?  Sorta.  Maybe. There was something of a question to the start, but the answer wasn’t in a book and he didn’t know where to find it…

Revelation, recognition of the turmoil that flashed over the younger’s face, the older almost smiled again.

But almost, like actualities, weren’t, not really.

“You can talk… today there will be a change.”  Vexen offered magnanimously.  “Today we will spend some time talking non academia, we will space it out between facts and figures so you can actually participate in a real conversation.”

Blank confusion, the older’s lips thinned at the sight.  Insulted, deeply, well he would have been had he had what they all lacked.  Twisting the puzzle of a lacking intellect the academic twiddled bits and pieces of ideas until with a click and half start, inspiration struck. He twitched, might have crowed once upon a time ago, but this was not now.

So he twitched and set his green gaze upon blue.

“Lessons first, what did we study last?”

“A.. additshin…”

“Addition.”  Came the crisp correction.  “Your book, Zexion, the first man you met, told me that you read ahead. Did you perhaps bother to write down about what you read in my book?”

There was a bit of a smirk to the last.  A bite of cruel that was more bitter than the greenest bitterest thing ever.  But the unnamed didn’t see it.  Only the smile. And because when he smiled Zexion sometimes did, and when he smiled Aeleus _always_ did, the unnamed Nobody tried to smile at the older Nobodies smile.

Smile and think.

“People…”  He scrambled through conversations he’d overheard and explanations his developing mind thought he’d heard between sleeping and waking. “S… smart people… they write… write books.”

A short, almost, laugh.  “Though a good attempt considering your experiences your hypothesis is flawed.  Not all smart people write books, Thirteen, any blank page can be scrawled upon by anyone with a pen.  A pen, which you’ve never had, and pages, which you’ve never seen bare of prose, can be used by any who poses them.  I think… that perhaps, we should take this conversation beyond mere repetition.”

The boy called Thirteen made a confused noise.  Ignoring the babble, the fourth hummed and with a chilly flourish pulled a pen out of the void which he’d used to fetch the books.  Picking up both pen and book he stood, wide blue eyes followed him as he paced around the table.  The boy nearly toppling out of his stool to see behind him, where Vexen had stopped.

“Be still.”  The older grumbled, settling once hand over the child’s shoulder.

At the chill the boy went as still as one with a nip running down his back could.  Familiar with the shudder the lightest of his touches could trigger, the older spread the books before the boy, guiding pale hands in his gloved so they closed over the shaft of a pen.  Once sure the boy was holding it steady he guided both their hands.

“Today we are working on subtraction, yes, I know we talked about it yesterday, but today we’re trying something different.  While working on this review we will be writing. I will be talking while you write; you will write what I say.

As he spoke the older moved both their hands so that what he said slowly was scrawled upon the open, water rimmed edges of a notebook.  The handwriting was rubbish, but then he wasn’t really holding the pen right for his slashing scratches to appear properly. Seeing the boy’s ungloved hands begin to pale he loosed his grip, there was a clatter as the pen slipped free.

Without prompt the boy went for it. It was (sadly, he supposed) an improvement from the placid watching the subject have favored the dropped item a few days ago.  Once sure it was picked up, and the boy was in his place and the books set in front of the child as was proper the Academic stepped back.

“Write one minus five, formal numerals if you would, just the equation, _not_ everything I’m saying.  Can you even write letters yet?”  That bit of acid arrested the busy body scrawls that had been affected at each syllable. “No, well that will be quickly remedied, but for now numbers, formal and layman if you would.”

In shaky jagged lines there appeared an oversized version of the required.

“v – i

5 – 1”

“You forgot the equal signs.”  Came the grumpy reminder.

Once reminded the older cracked a smirk. The struggling boy noted, but didn’t smile, couldn’t. Holding the pen in cold hands was hard. 

“Passable, you’re what… a week old?  Not bad for a week’s old first efforts... After all, we must be encouraging, mustn’t we?  So much better than say… encouragement at needle point…”  A cackle, more crackle than mirth.  “Now, the answers, write them slowly, I want to be able to actually read them.  Slow and small. Like the numbers in the books you learn from, make it look like that.”

Face screwing up with the effort of getting it right, the younger tried, and failed.  The answer while right was backwards.  Opening his mouth, to snap something biting, the older closed it with a snap. Blue eyes locked upon green, the expression on the boy’s face was a rarity.  Not proud, or condescending, as so many young things normally addressed their elders… but rather with something else…

To that something else, something that summoned images of a slate haired boy in an oversized lab coat, Vexen coughed.

“Reasonable… well… for.. an attempt…”

And to that scarcest of compliments the child’s eyes went wide, then that wide, catchy smile was unleashed.

It should be _quarantined_ , that look.  Checking the urge to indulge his lips in a small twitch Vexen coughed least he slap himself.  _Must not smile, unprofessional_.  And those were _not_ puppy eyes being pinned on him.  There was no requisite whining and the like preceding it, so those were not puppy eyes and he was _not_ having  flashbacks to the rare moments of sentimental indulgence a Somebody-hood ago.

No, he was not.

“Yes… not… bad… but you’ll do better, must do better, next time.”

 _Stop looking at me, like that, stop it_.  He wanted to scream the order.  But he remained quiet and the words went unsaid and the frantic impulses beating in his nonexistent heart went unfulfilled.

“So,” licking his chill lips, the older nodded to the page.  “The next equation, six minus eight, get to it. If you get it right, we’ll talk”

The boy scrambled to obey, seeing a treat where honestly there was none. Turning his back to better pursue the pen across parchment the child nearly hummed with enthusiasm, sullen façade down.  To that trust number four closed his eyes.  He couldn’t watch; least his very eyes shatter and tears leak out to trace slashed out paths across his face


	10. The Now: untitled

Questions, Quandaries, and Quarry

 **The Now:**  
  
He jolted awake, his world unfamiliar, and to that unfamiliarity he sat and stared. Thunder rattled the windows, dark smeared the lines of the world outside. One breath, another, memory returned, and his fear slowed. Unfisting clenched hands he pushed back from the table. Periodicals and books tumbled from the edge. The order he’d meticulously enforced upon the mundane was broken in a pseudo flight of broken spines and unfurled folds.  
  
They were there. In baggy blue uniform. Thunder rumbled, lightning split the darkness whose scent he was beginning to savor. Swift, sweet, fleeting. The sour reek of antiseptic and fear was a poor trade.  
  
He stared at them, sorted them from height and location as their impassive facades and unmarked attire blurred them in his eyes. Scrubs, misplaced surgeons, save no surgeon was that bulky, no doctor need to be that scarred. Nor did they need to travel in packs that covered all the exits. He’d seen them once (at least he recalled once) before, knew why they were here.  
  
Unarmed, it was simply for a move. A placement to one place he disliked for one he’d despise.  
  
Armed… if they were armed… he’d fight. Fight to the death.  
  
Because in the depths of his soul, in those violated places least warped, he knew that he would not survive another "cleansing". Didn’t want to, truth be told.  
  
Tracing sleeves, backs, belts, he sought bulges and folds. There were none. Save the closest, that one had a watch if the whisper of ticking was anything to go by.  
Wrinkling his nose, he grimaced. Painfully aware of all the scents, most sour, that lingered in the public place.   
  
"What do you want?" He finally bit out, flicking his animosity rimmed eyes from one to the other. If one went, for gun or stunner he’d… he didn’t know what… But he waited, waited in the chancy light for they’d taken all the lights in their coming.  
  
And killed all the cameras.  
  
Ironic that… considering they were agents of the light and all.  
  
"Are you coming peacefully?" The shortest, the farthest, gruffed back.  
  
That depends…" Thunder rumbled, his face twitched into a fascimilie of a grimace as his   
left cheek went numb. It always did in a storm, still their jumping at his shift nearly summoned a smile. Something like memory teased him then. It’s coming and going teased and tightened his eyes, killed his good humor, and left his eyes thinned to slits.  
  
"General assessment," the watch barer assured. "That’s it."   
  
The "I promise" was left unsaid, but not unheard. Familiar with the nature of false promises the traitor looked from one to the other. Combing them from first to last he sighed.  
  
Who was he kidding, he’d never get away….  
  
 _Still_ , breathed a whisper of discontent the heart of Before, _that didn’t mean he had to make it too easy_.  
  
Cracking a smile meant to reassure, he stood, lingered at the table. Piles, some disturbed, others not, some relevant others not. He looked down at his efforts, then plucked his notebook and its cryptic question and answers from the organized chaos. Tucking it under his arm, he set one hand under the table. One push affirmed the wooden island was not nailed down.  
  
That was more than enough.  
  
They leapt, like loosed dogs all baying and backing (orders, always orders), at the tables fall. Grappled him, though he didn’t resist. Arms wrenched about, shoved behind his back, he held the notebook despite their damndes. That near loss woke him to violence, limited as it was with an arm pressed to his side with such tenacity it might aw well have been stone. The one who almost loosed it received a bite for his efforts.  
  
The steely click warned of handcuffs, the kick to his knees of a fall. He his carpet with jeaned knees, despite the slight cushioning he hissed at the burn that surely happened underneath. Twisting about, he lashed with his feet, before those were bound. He felt, in that frantic madness of the scuffle, that something was missing. Something was missing. In the jangle of misplaced memories and maliciously guided instinct and transplanted impulse, in the heart of that fight (where his was still, hardly thundering despite the exertion) something was missing…  
  
Pain, a pin prick, than warmth flooded over his shoulder… under the skin.  
  
Damn them, damn the bastards! He snarled, surged, but they had him by then. All he could do was make the burly one flinch under a glare that was surly glazing.  
  
He opened his mouth, futile spite wanting release.  
  
It wasn’t curses that he uttered, there was little air in him, hardly enough to voice all his hate.  
  
Still, they weren’t the only one bewildered by his drug drunken… "Wantit back… Givit bak…"  
The dark behind his eyes felt hollow, but the fall was real for the impact bruised.  
  
XX  
  
Bewildered, the squadrans leader would comb through his men. With queiies and questions, he'd repeat the redundant "What'd he say?" and think 'what did it mean?', and get no answer for either.  
  
Save there were answers. One notebook's worth. A book of questions (who won the Struggle Tournament in 218 AD?), and it's answers that should have been mundane were not.  
  
For the trivia was encrypted.  
  
Except for the first six.  
  
 _"I died, how can a man die more than once?_  
 _"Who am I?"_  
 _"What am I?"_  
 _"Who are the sixth, the fifth, the fourth, the ninth, the thirteenth?"_  
 _"What did I do?"_  
 _"What will they do?"_  
  
Then, under that, the last line on the sixth page, segregated by distance and a frantic, frusterated, spikiness, that spoke of words jotted down in a rush.  
  
 _There are no answers, no truths, not for these six. For these are foundations, these are truths. That which I am always denied._

Thirteen thones in a white room, where breathing is forbidden. The grey is a scythes sweep away. The reaper adorns himself in roses, the assasins are aflame, the nympth adores the storm that sheers branch from birch, and we who know nothing always no nothing.

The last that very last, slurred by sleeps coming perhaps.  
  
 _The heart of the world beats colors, thier fading is magnificent, brilliant, and nothing is left, nothing at all, substantial, sweet, stable void._  
  
The void is a room, rememberance is a spire, this is where nothingness gathers.


	11. The Before: Catagories and Beginings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used an odd word program.... as my comp is in tech it's all I had. Any misspells will be addressed at a later date. Thanks for understanding.

The Before: Categories and Beginnings

"Aww lookit the baby." Voice like element, scratchy and high, he went around her. She wasn't big (not Lexaeus big) so it wasn't a chore. Obvious, perhaps, but not too out of his way. So he didn't mind. She was just between him and the grey, nothing more, nothing less.  
  
He would ignore her, she him, logical and fair for them both.  
  
Though the former had been drilled into him from his earliest days the later was something innate. Innate things were precious, like memories, or so he'd been assured. Not knowing what "precious" meant he simply followed the orders that were not.  
  
It was like so many things here; they were not, the world was not, their hearts were not (though how they were -or weren't- and their hearts were not was what Vexen had called a con-tra-dic-tion) he tagged it under "confusing".  
  
Like "all very young things with little minds within my (AKA Vexen's) jurisdiction" he had been driven to neatly (because messy thoughts were signs of diseased minds, and diseased minds were _very_ bad) categorized his "confusing things". Most were "Meh, don't care". A few were "Do it again and see what happens" especially with the sparkly oil in the lab lingering over the little fire element bit, but shh don't tell Lexeaus that, Number Five had yelled really loud when he caught the younger nobody playing with the fire before...

But there were a surprising many labeled "ask Vexen, Zexion, or Alaeus later".  
  
"What are you, brain dead or something, I'm talking to-"  
  
But he was gone, more than. Walking past, besides, beyond, intent on crossing the span between door and here so that here was there.  
  
Half present, the physical half, the one that said "left foot, right foot, balance, head up, eyes open" without words was present. The other half, the part that understood what was seen and compiled it into reaction was busy. Though the eyes were open there was little home, just a note pasted on his forehead, the words etched in a blank expression that read "bother me later" because though grey the world was _wonderful_.

There were parts that moved, and glimpses of a black wide filling yet filled stuff up high that he spied from the corner of his eyes as he walked. That filling but not filled was "up" and the grey was "Down", not floor down but really down! And "Around", grey was around each side too, and it wasn't white! And there was a round toothy thing he thought was a gear that went round and around. Even though the wall it was in was still and doing nothing.  
  
He stopped, stopped to stare. Grey Room and its obligation forgotten. Even as the screechy thing ("What is your problem, freak! Talk when you're spoken too!") was insignifigent. Trying to see cause and clause in that sole bit of motion among the still. After a moment ("Give it a count," Number Six had advised on one of the earliest days, "to thirty, if nothing obvious occurs and it's not for a mission than it probably isn't important and you can ask one of us later") and a count he was content to make a mental note of "ask Alaeus about that latter" and carry on.  
  
Save he wasn't, allowed to carry on. Before he knew why -the how was obvious, hot, small hands, all prickly and pin-prick- he was shoved into a wall and instead of being nice and being helped up, or apologized too, or anything he'd had happened before the smaller-than-Lexeaus-Nobody pushed him near the wall. Pushed and supported, and while not falling was sorta nice breathing was hard.

He really wanted to breathe.  
  
"I said _listen_ to me."  
  
So he listened, eyes locked on the hands that gripped him, trying to squirm out of that pinchy hold.  
  
"LOOK at me!"  
  
So he did, eyes wide, wondering.  
  
Her fingertips small, crooked, and red. Not tomatoe red, or bacon red (a brownish red that was all crackle and cunch), but a glossy hue beyond his experience. He was almost entranced, but the pushing was equalling hurting and he didn't like that equation's outcome, not a bit.  
  
"S... stp... it..."  
  
Acid green eyes thinned, she smiled, and it was a smile as bitter as her eyes.  
  
"Well, the newbie can speak, wonder of wonders, now you listen to me brat, you may "just be a kid" but you'll do what I say, got me?" She punctuated the last with a broken glass smile and a shake so the edges ground in, the walls edges, his back, he grimaced.  
  
"Problem?"  
  
Talon hands loosed and the pin prickle snap of her touch eased with her grip. He slid to the floor, legs shaking, but stable enough that he could ease down and not just topple. Perched on that treacherous span before boneless collapse and steady he looked at nothing.  
  
Stepping back, face flicking from malice to sweetness, the she-nobody upped her grin so she flashed her teeth in a facsimile of friendship.  
  
"Good morning Lexaeus."  
  
Ignoring the insignifigent, the Silent broke his quiet. One word, all inquiry. Though his face was locked into heartless stillness there was a flux to his tone, a flux the youngest wouldn’t have recognized unless he’d heard the rigid edge of cruelty mere moments before.  
  
Wondering at the variable, and the softness he sensed under it, he compared it to acidic crackle that was… her… looking past her, twelve hissed training, she was twelth, he thirteen, and met those familiar eyes dead on.  
  
"Fine."  
  
His voice shook, only a little and he was starting to stand.

That was fine enough.  
  
A nod, no change. Still, despite the Fifth’s placidity he wagered he’d be treated to a Vexen’s worth of skepticism later. Face crouching into a few more lines, Lexaeus jerked his head. It was all but a name call that motion and break in the expressionless, odd though that he was looking at Her with those extra lines marking his face. The she nobody, number Twelve, hopped back at the mute order not meant for her. It was… like number Five was going to do something bad if she didn’t.  
  
Familiar with bad (all bitter and green and roundish) the thirteenth could feel a little bad via association and assumption. Just a little. A twitch.  
  
She’d get green things in her food for a month, the really bitter ones, if those tight lines meant anything.  
  
Now that the hall wasn’t so crowded, Thirteen was able to scurry after the call, this second name call was a warning, of a break in Lexeaus’ silence.  
  
He’d recalled Vexen saying something, about the world ending, eyes wide he looked for it, found nothing more than Her and Lexeaus and Grey. It was that edge expression that told him "time was up" so he skipped a few numbers, sorta called it thirty, and he hurried to catch up after the longer legged Nobody.   
  
Passed and through, the door pushed open squeaked closed, no knobs required. Another hall, Her behind, he amused himself with looking for slits that had that black span from up high, peeping at it from eye corners behind a sheet of muffling their glass.  
  
"I spoke to Saix on your behalf." The Fifth grumbled. His tone was a mismatch of cause and intent. Coating it from one end of another was "trouble" closely followed by "No (or maybe never again)" with a growly edge that was a "you were late". Boots clicked, one skipped, though the elder never turned back to check it was easy to tell by the tempo at his footfalls.

"Your first mission is with Zexion."  
  
"E awn.."  
  
He still wasn’t talking right. His mind was young (unformed, they’d all said it, stabilizing, this was his formative span, whatever that meant). He’d of uttered a quick "sorry". Sure those words would come out right. But the odd twitch to Five’s shoulders made him scratch this off of "Ask about later" list and pop it onto the top of "Try again."  
  
So like any new born he played with sound and syllables, blurring the edges a bit.  
  
"N… Na Ehh awns zz noo…"  
  
But it was enough to break silence. "Ienzo… isn’t here anymore. It’s Zexion."  
  
One whisper, all bitter (and green) and gritty and hard, and dirty, staining, like the dust tucked in the back corner of lab one no matter how much they all swept, came the repetition.  
  
"It’s always Zexion."  
  
Before the younger could ask, ask anything they were at a door, and that door had knob. Nicely Lexaeus twisted and pulled, ushering him in. And all "ask latters" they all died. The room might be grey, and bland, but the people (so many all in black, most reclined, Nine sprawled sitar in hand) made up for it.  
  
They all turned to him. Different eyes, different shapes, different hair colors, it was blinding. Suddenly he wanted more than anything to turn, turn, run, be away. Lab two with it’s two chairs and two cups and two colors and two peoples (somebody, nobody, it didn’t matter) suddenly didn’t seem so boring after all.  
  
Reaching back, gripping the familiar (sturdy) presence at his back (and a leg to boot, or rather _the_ boot) with a whimper.  
  
And they stared, all still and hush until a blonde (hair yellow, darker, close cropped, he’d heard the words, had them explained, but seeing and hearing were different) bared a span of white blocky things an turned his lips up.   
  
"Morning Thirteen, you play yet?"  
  
"He doesn’t talk yet." Lexeaus grumbled.  
  
That multitude of words from the bigger nobody summoned a bristling about the smiling one’s face hair. Face all lines and thinning eyes the sitting Nobody did something with his hands. Slips of paper, thicker than sticky notes, flapped and fluttered, not quite flying, but jumping with crisp rustles. First left, than right, then left. He watched, turning his head back and forth, then up and down, then left then up then…  
  
"Luxord!" Snarled the blue topped… haired… man. His was alone, but not in the room. Blue head was framed by black big void up high, only a thin line of invisible keeping him and it from touching. "Enough! Roxas, Thirteen, get over here, you’ve work to do! Come."  
  
He was big, not Lexeaus big, but almost. He was tall as Lexeaus but thinner about the shoulders. Lexeaus had bigger feet, because the standing by himself Nobody’s feet couldn’t be seen. But you always saw Lexeaus’ feet. Idly comparing, never noticing when he’d slipped up from the second step of thinking all on his own, he wandered up and tried that thing.  
  
That up lift lip thing.  
  
Gold eyes, frozener than Frozen Pride, considered him. Then snapping his fingers, summoning ma-no-la the alone but not made something that wasn’t suddenly be. It wasn’t much, just a rush of cool light, a span of tan, with some white papers stuffed inside.

Carefully he opened the flaps, but unlike every other book he’d seen it was all blank, and lines. Was the writer sick, maybe? Mind thirteen didn’t know what sick _was,_ it just felt _right_ to assume that so he did.  
  
He’d of asked too, but those eyes were thin lines like his face. Unlike Lexeaus’ broad face, there was a twitch to the shorter nobody's jaw that felt _wrong_.   
  
"Don’t think... that because you’re special you can skimp on your missions. Read it and head out."  
  
"Roxas." The youngest nobody recalled then. "’m Roxas."  
  
"And I am Saix." Grumped the blue topped one. "Now sit down, read, be quiet, then when you’re ready _get out_."  
  
So he settled to read.  Since eading was easier sitting he sat, and at sittings end he looked up.  There was another rush, cool light, and something long and pointy was pointed, first at him (after a poke and growled "don’t sit _here_!"), then over a ways, to a grey chair where he was told to sit. A red topped nobody was there, a red topped Nobody, and (familiar!) Zexion who was Six and Nobody both as once, and the paper clapper who blu- Saix, called Luxord.  
  
Curious, the Red one perked at meeting his gaze. _He_ did the lip upturn thing really really good. Green eyes sparkling, he patted the fluffy span besides him.  
  
"Hey little guy, wanna pop on up?"  
  
Besides him, (familiar) Zexion glared at the new Nobody (Red) and grimaced.  
  
"Mmm.." Remembering bitter (Zexion’s grimaces were always green bitter, they left the taste in his mouth for _minutes_ ) he looked all about. Spotting another (familiar!) Nobody, all lanky and blonde sitting alone he shook his head and "popped" on the chair besides Vexen’s. It was rough, and three legged, and a stool… But it wasn’t. Stools didn’t have grey fluff on their seats at the lab. Vexen sat at a little oversized stool thing. Save the big stool had four legs ,and no sink, or experiments. The big stool was /so big and the only thing on it was a beaker with a coil. The beaker was thick and grey, with a black steaming muck placidly resting inside.  
  
"Whatcha doing?"  
  
Taking the coil on the beaker, Vexen rose an eyebrow, set the beaker to his lips, and gulped at tip back's end. Oh he was doing _that_.  
  
Still, at drink’s end number Four set his drink down, offering the redundant. "I was drinking, number Thirteen. That is what I was doing. And what are you supposed to be doing?"  
  
"This." He set the founder on the desk, keeping it away from the beaker just to be safe, he opened it. Those motions were simple; he’d been playing with folders and paper for forever. Watching with a shaded approval, the Chilly Academic took another draw, mutely willing the caffeine to work faster. "I have paper, am I a writer now?"  
  
Vexen nearly choked to death on his draw.


	12. Report: 03, Inconsistancy of Learning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another snipit form the back pages of the Lexicon

**Report: 03**  
 **Inconsistency, and learning**  
  
  
 _Actuality and fancy, hypothesis and conclusion._   
  
These conjoined ideas... ideals… are also the crux of the analytical mind, and this the core of all knowledge.  
  
The fallacy lies in assuming one leads to the other (in case of the later) and that the lines between the four are definite has been the down fall of many. Of any. Of all.  
Speaking of the four a familiar line leaps to mind, one that encompasses one and all.  
  
“Those who know nothing can learn nothing.”  
  
Yet the learning process hinges upon these four absurdities on high. First line to be exact.  
  
We can start with one, blunder into the other, drag the lines between three and four, criss cross from the first to the second, never realizing our straying. In fact, the assumption that going from one pole of the learning process and get something “right” is equally erroneous…  
  
But perhaps this is too amorphous a meandering. Even for one as evasive as myself.  
Take the substance from the line that is five yet is not.   
  
The crux, the topic is knowledge of nothing. The core of this is utter oxymoron. How can one know nothing? Describe nothing, quantify it, and you have destroyed it. By default, knowing anything we divorce ourselves from the nothingness therefore losing means –if there were ever any- to encapsulate a “nothing” into language. It acquires qualities consumable to the masses. Depth and width, comparison, contrast, contradiction, emotion, thus is the nature of description, to lay these factors upon the previous unknown. By mere description we unravel a nothing. Furthermore, to communicate, to describe, no matter how crassly, we entrench ourselves into the world. For the world is what we draw upon a means to communicate. As base environment shapes how we learn to communicate, and learning of choices changes how we communicate as we age, communication of _any means_ undermines the very concept of nothing.   
  
In short, one cannot know “nothing” because “nothing” is simply that.  
  
Thus in the above morass we touch upon absurdity. By establishing what is; an act of actuality, we can glean that the crux of the subject statement is impossibility. Another term for impossible is an absurd, also known as a faction of fancy.  
  
Moving along form the frivolous and its counterpart we approach the twin tiers of hypothesis and conclusion. The statement is in itself a hypothesis. How can we deduce this? Simplicity, word choice.  
  
A hypothesis is, by definition (for sake of this excert), an idea that may or may not be true. It is a purposed outcome to a sequence of events, a seemingly related observations, etcetera that are wound together and tested to see if there is a relation, a cause and effect phenomenon. At its most simple a hypothesis can sound like this; “It will rain today.”, than there are steps dubbed “scientific” that are followed to either prove or disprove the given statement.  
  
This statement is a hypothesis.  
  
In this case the inverse is also true. The statement is a hypothesis, a statement is a hypothesis, any statement can be, given an inquiring mind is about. The statement of interest though lies on the line above. Though proven erroneous by the core premise of nothingness being an actuality, or comprehensible by those who existed (for those who exist cannot, by default being associated with a world of some sorts, actually comprehend a lack of the basic elements of said world) the idea of one being static or not in one’s ability to acquire _more_ knowledge is in fact a forum of hypothesis. It leads to questions beyond itself, can be tested, confirmed, affirmed, and analyzed.  
  
Thus we come to the conclusion and revisit the initial question sans insulting inflection. Can one who knows nothing learn nothing? Yes and no. One who knows nothing is bound by nonexistence, for existence requires the knowledge of environment, the sensory means to navigate, therefore if knowledge is comprehensible, and the world is comprehensible, and both are based upon the world one cannot know nothing and exist in a world simultaneously.  
  
Therefore the theory is wrong.  
  
However it is possible to know so little about something, or encounter something so alien –real but outré- that it is possible to know _nothing_ of it beyond what is perceived by the senses at that moment. In that sense one can literally understand nothing of an aspect, of what is seen, but that does not make the item, the subject, _true_ nothingness, and by default make comprehensible the nothingness which the statement above speaks-  
  
  
(The remnants of the essay are lost, the pages blackened, smelling of acid yet darkened as if it had been immersed in smoke, and… to the most keen of noses… there is the faintest whiff of darkness.)


End file.
